Kontak:Nel-Mari Loock
- 021 808 2652
Plek: Aud 1, Wallenberg Research Centre, STIAS
Social interactions play a crucial role in the lives of organisms,
including humans. They influence varied aspects of an individual’s life
history, physiology and behaviour, and therefore are in the focus of
interest of fields as diverse as medicine, immunology, evolution,
behavioural ecology, population biology and theoretical biology.
Individuals benefit from social interactions, but at the same time
compete over access to resources. A challenging situation here is that
the social environment is characterized by a high degree of flexibility
and intrinsic unpredictability and is thus considered to be the most
complex and fluctuating component of an individual’s environment. Our
research focusses on social interactions in an evolutionary framework
and uses an integrative approach to understand how differences in the
social environment lead to differences in social interactions that
translate into fitness differences between individuals. We do so by
utilising a long-term data set on a population of wild house mice (Mus
musculus domesticus) and aim to investigate general principles
underlying the evolution of sociality and its endocrine and neural
mechanisms. In my talk I will highlight communal offspring care among
female house mice to illustrate how decision making and social partner
choice allow to stabilise cooperation and affect the dynamics of social
groups and the entire population.
Barbara König German by birth, studied biology at
the University of Konstanz, with a PhD received in 1985. After research
fellowships and positions in Australia, Switzerland, Germany and India,
she joined the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1996 as head of
Animal Behaviour, until she retired in 2020. Her research interest is
animal behaviour, studied from an evolutionary perspective. With her
group, they aim to understand the evolution of social behaviour as well
as how interactions with conspecifics structure groups and populations,
processes also relevant for conservation. Working both in the field and
in the laboratory, we use behavioural, ecological, physiological and
molecular genetic methods to achieve a comprehensive understanding of
the causes and consequences of social behaviour in mammals. Besides
teaching, mentoring and serving as a reviewer, her academic and
administrative services included: President of the German Zoological
Society (DZG e.V.), Head of the Board of the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation, Managing Director (Department of Evolutionary Biology and
Environmental Studies, Univ. Zurich), Member of Academic Boards or
Scientific Advisory Boards (Max-Planck-Society, Austrian Academy of
Sciences, Danish National Research Foundation, Volkswagenstiftung,
Branco Weiss-Fellowship, National Centre of Competence in Gender Studies
Zurich), Secretary General of the International Council of Ethology,
and still ongoing: Member of the Board of the Swiss Academy of Natural
Sciences (SCNAT) and Member of the Supervisory Board of the Zoo Zurich
AG.
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